Executive Director's Report July 1999 =========================== July 13, 1999 By Christopher L. Cope (execdir@freenet.carleton.ca) Contents: 1. Administration & Funding 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives 3. System Administration 1. Administration & Funding =========================== a) Donation Data - New Registrations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While new registrations were up this month (289 compared to 151 last month), we were still well below our forecast of 400. A large percentage of these new members were day camp students from Ottawa University, and accordingly the percentage of donors was low at 38.4% rather than the typical 50% or so we usually expect. The net result was $2,518 for the month which is 37% below our forecast. On a year-to-date basis, our total donations associated with new registrations is under Budget by $4,776 or -22%. No. No. % Of Avg. Regist New Budget Regist Memb $ Budget Regist Donat'n Memb. (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donat'n All New ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'98 3,488 7,224 -52% 1,499 43.0% $35,668 $46,225 -23% $23.79 $10.23 Avg'98 291 602 -52% 125 43.0% $ 2,972 $ 3,852 -23% $23.79 $10.23 Jan. 205 300 -32% 133 64.9% $ 3,297 $ 3,000 -10% $24.79 $16.08 Feb 230 300 -23% 127 55.2% $ 2,704 $ 3,000 -10% $23.62 $13.04 Mar. 213* 300 -29% 114 53.5% $ 2,875 $ 3,000 -4% $26.32 $14.08 Apr. 203 300 -32% 95 46.8% $ 2,437 $ 3,000 -19% $31.58 $14.78 May 141 300 -53% 91 64.5% $ 2,002 $ 3,000 -33% $32.97 $21.28 Jun. 151 300 -50% 67 44.4% $ 1,391 $ 3,000 -54% $44.78 $19.87 Jul. 289 400 -28% 111 38.4% $ 2,518 $ 4,000 -37% $36.04 $13.84 Aug. 400 $ 4,000 Sep. 400 $ 4,000 Oct. 400 $ 4,000 Nov. 400 $ 4,000 Dec. 400 $ 4,000 ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'99 1,432 2,200 -35% 738 51.5% $17.224 $22,000 -22% $23.34 $12.03 Avg'99 205 314 -35% 105 51.5% $ 2,460 $ 3,143 -22% $23.34 $12.03 b) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The rate of renewal is still far lower than forecast at 348 for the month compared with a budget of 510. The percentage of donors was lower than usual as well, for a net of $7,350 for the month, which is -29% off the Budget figure. Year-to-date, we have collected $116,091 from renewals, which is $31,909 or 22% under our projection. No. % Of Avg. Renwl No. Budget Renwl Renwl $ Budget Renwl Donate Renwl (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donatn All Ren ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'98 9,697 10,012 -3% 6,465 66.7% $156,819 $228,388 -31% $24.26 $16.17 AVG'98 808 834 -3% 539 66.7% $ 13,068 $ 19,032 -31% $24.26 $16.17 Jan. 906 1,020 3% 880 97.1% $ 20,844 $ 20,800 0% $23.69 $23.01 Feb. 826 1,279 -35% 781 94.6% $ 23,316 $ 26,100 -11% $29.85 $28.23 Mar. 1,151 1,162 -1% 818 71.1% $ 23,422 $ 23,700 -1% $28.63 $20.35 Apr. 717 1,235 -42% 576 80.3% $ 15,586 $ 25,200 -38% $27.06 $21.74 May 663 1,176 -44% 572 86.3% $ 15,522 $ 24,000 -35% $27.14 $23.41 Jun. 410 873 -53% 400 97.6% $ 10,051 $ 17,800 -44% $25.13 $24.51 Jul. 348 510 -32% 268 77.0% $ 7,350 $ 10,400 -29% $27.43 $21.12 Aug. 358 $ 7,300 Sep. 270 $ 5,500 Oct. 309 $ 6,300 Nov. 314 $ 6,400 Dec. 387 $ 7,900 ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'98 5,021 7,255 -31% 4,295 86% $116,091 $148,000 -22% $27.03 $23.12 AVG'98 717 1,036 -31% 614 86% $ 16,584 $ 21,143 -22% $27.03 $23.12 c) Unassigned Donations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Donations not associated with registration or renewals: Period Donors Donation Average ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ 1998 Total 1,103 $34,033 $30.85 1999 Jan. 41 $ 1,268 $30.93 Feb. 33 $ 1,057 $32.03 Mar. 07 $ 186 $26.57 Apr. 19 $ 431 $22.68 May. 2 $ 49 $24.50 Jun. 11 $ 389 $35.35 July 4 $ 186 $35.36 ~~~ ~~~~~~~ Total 117 $ 3,566 $30.48 d) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At 12,497 members, we lost 574 members or -4.4% during July. This represents a decline of some 4,194 members since January 1, 199 or a loss of 25% during the year. |Member | Current |To line| Actual |Ratio |Number Forecast Number Forecast Number Number # of % inc. | |Of New No. of Members No. of Members Members Members -dec. |Lns :1 |Members New Memb Renewed Renewed Un-arch Archvd ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ |~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ Jan. 16,691 -1.5% |213 76| 205 300 906 1,020 0 0 Feb. 13,461 4.7% |213 80| 230 300 826 1,279 1 4,739 Mar. 14,517 7.8% |213 80| 213 300 1,151 1,162 4 252 Apr. 14,115 -2.8% |213 67| 203 300 717 1,235 2 607 May 13,299 -5.8% |213 62| 141 300 663 1,176 7 964 Jun. 13,071 -1.7% |213 61| 151 300 410 873 4 887 Jul. 12,497 -4-4% |213 59| 289 400 348 510 0 863 e) Sponsorship, Homepage Data and Information Providers: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While there were no changes in the number of Organizational accounts or Line Sponsorships this month, we gained one Information Provider. The number of personal home pages declined to 916 or 7.3% of our membership. Org. Org. | Line Line | New Total Free -Dec. | Home of Accts Accts | Spons Spons | IPs IPs Pages % | Page Memb ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~ Jan. 1 41| 0 8 | 1 300 92 7.0% |1,051 9.9% Feb. 5 46| 0 8 | 5 305 94 2.2% |1,094 8.1% Mar. 2 48| 0 8 | -5 300 99 5.3% |1,078 7.4% Apr. 4 52| 0 8 | -2 298 101 2.0% |1,051 7.4% May 2 54| 0 8 | -6 292 99 -2.0% |1,007 7.6% June 2 56| 0 8 | 1 293 105 6.1% | 974 7.5% July 0 56| 0 8 | 1 294 105 0% | 916 7.3% f) Modem Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (i) Weekly Sessions: While the number of PPP sessions increased by 2% to 43,423 sessions per week, the total number of sessions dropped by 933 or -1% to 74,507 weekly sessions. PPP sessions represented 58% of the total number of weekly sessions, while text users now only account for 42% of the total. PPP Users PPP Users Text Users Total Increase Main Pool Mitel Pool Total PPP (Main Pool) Sessions Decrease ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ Jan 7,656 14% 52,953 Feb 7,068 17% 42,381 -20% Mar 29,635 44% 8,125 12% 37,769 55% 30,320 45% 68,080 61% Apr 25,350 38% 8,885 13% 34,235 51% 33,017 49% 67,252 -1% May 30,565 42% 8,444 12% 39,009 54% 33,757 46% 72,766 8% Jun 35,280 47% 7,455 10% 42,735 57% 32,705 43% 75,440 4% Jul 37,590 50% 5,833 8% 43,423 58% 31,084 42% 74,507 -1% (ii) Unique users in a one week period: The total number of unique users declined by 4% to 7,184. We can see a considerable shift this month from the Mitel pool to the Main pool, likely because of our hardware problems at Mitel. Of this total number of unique users, PPP users accounted for 63% this month. PPP Users PPP Users Text Users Total Increase Main Pool Mitel Pool Total PPP (Main Pool) Sessions Decrease ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ Jan 1,178 16% 7,187 Feb 1,127 17% 6,508 -9% Mar 2,510 30% 1,095 13% 3,605 43% 4,711 57% 8,316 28% Apr 2,419 31% 1,163 15% 3,582 46% 4,243 54% 7,825 -6% May 2,599 33% 1,168 15% 3,767 48% 4,130 52% 7,897 1% Jun 2,600 35% 1,103 15% 3,703 49% 3,789 51% 7,492 -5% Jul 3,522 49% 986 14% 4,508 63% 2,676 37% 7,184 -4% f) Modem Availability ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The modem monitoring software was used to make 3,765 attempts with the following results: 271-9768 520-1135 520-9013 Hr:Min Samp Aval Fail Samp Aval Fail Samp Aval Fail ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 0:00 21 0% 100% 20 60% 40% 21 4% 0% 1:00 20 15% 85% 20 65% 35% 20 70% 0% 2:00 0 0% 0% 1 0% 100% 0 0% 0% 7:00 60 30% 70% 60 90% 10% 60 98% 0% 8:00 60 16% 83% 60 96% 3% 60 98% 1% 9:00 43 27% 72% 43 93% 6% 43 86% 4% 0:00 20 30% 70% 20 80% 20% 20 95% 5% 1:00 41 29% 70% 40 90% 10% 40 47% 17% 2:00 44 34% 65% 42 92% 7% 42 59% 30% 3:00 40 30% 70% 40 97% 2% 40 57% 42% 4:00 40 35% 65% 40 82% 17% 40 65% 32% 5:00 50 24% 76% 49 83% 16% 49 67% 26% 6:00 114 26% 73% 113 85% 14% 111 63% 18% 7:00 89 23% 75% 90 88% 11% 89 62% 8% 8:00 115 20% 80% 115 85% 14% 114 73% 12% 9:00 103 19% 80% 103 78% 21% 104 49% 16% 0:00 100 9% 90% 100 76% 24% 100 48% 8% 21:00 100 8% 92% 100 72% 16% 100 41% 16% 22:00 100 5% 94% 100 54% 25% 100 32% 17% 23:00 98 5% 94% 99 63% 23% 99 32% 17% ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1,258 19% 75% 1,255 76% 21% 1,252 57% 14% The following table, illustrates the frequency of actual error messages produced by the modem tracking software. 271-9768 520-1135 520-9013 ALL ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Busy 48 4.3% 51 4.5% 302 26.9% 401 11.9% Busy 3 0.2% 46 3.7% 339 27.1% 388 10.3% DialTimeout 0 0.0% 0 0.0% 1 0.1% 1 0.0% ModemInitTimeout 6 0.5% 3 0.2% 10 0.8% 19 0.5% NoCarrier 147 11.7% 116 9.2% 115 9.2% 378 10.0% NoDialTone 0 0.0% 1 0.1% 0 0.0% 1 0.0% NoLoginPrompt 0 0.0% 6 0.5% 0 0.0% 6 0.2% NoServiceMenu 863 68.6% 75 6.0% 54 4.3% 992 26.3% OtherFailure 4 0.3% 6 0.5% 4 0.3% 14 0.4% Success 235 18.7% 1,002 79.8% 729 58.2% 1,966 52.2% ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1,258 100% 1,255 100% 1,252 100% 3,765 100% 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Projects ~~~~~~~~ (i) Extended Access II - RMOC Newbridge Networks have agreed to donate a new 32 port terminal server complete with built-in modems. An order for a "Special Assembly" has been placed with Bell Canada to provide the time-of-day scheduling for the telephone service. We hope to initiate this service early in the fall. (ii) Industry Canada - Urban CAP Ottawa steering committee: Representatives of nine organizations, including the Cities of Ottawa, Gloucester and Nepean, Libraries from these cities, OCRI, HRDC, Ottawa2000, and Carleton University will meet again on September 16, 1999 to discuss a city-wide CAP project. (iii) Industry Canada - VolNet: We now have more than 150 voluntary sector agencies registered. Letters of acceptance have been sent out to the first wave of recipients together with order forms for the subsidized computers. Training of recipient agencies will begin in early September with a combination of site visits and classroom workshops. The Rainbow Skills Development Centre will provide computer lab(s) for our use for classroom sessions. We are currently recruiting to fill the position "VolNet Support C-ordinator." This bilingual contract position will involve training, support, help desk, site-visit coordination etc. for VolNet recipients in our region. (iv) Email For Students Discussions continue with representatives of Ottawa2000 to include this project among other "millennium projects" in the region. The project requires the support of educators, and accordingly progress will be better once teachers and principals are back in September. (v) Industry Canada - Smart Communities A submission has been made to Industry Canada for a project called "Smart Capital". The Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) is the lead agency on this initiative and NCF has provided a letter of support for the project. Our letter notes that: "we are well-positioned to support the delivery of many of the proposed Smart Services, and could leverage its existing infrastructure to host such services as a Community-based Public Key Infrastructure directory, Community-based E-mail, Web-casting/Video Servers, and Local Directory Services" (vi) HRDC (Office of Learning Technology): Work continues on the business plan for a "Thin Client" project. (vii) HRDC Student Employment Program - CapitalFind: Jamie Oastler (ek109) continues to work at populating the pages of CapitalFind as [art of our HRDC sponsored Student Employment project. Mr. Oastler will continue until August 27th, 1999. b) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Francis Moran, Managing Partner of inmedia Public Relations Inc. has expressed an interest in donating his firm's services to the NCF. Inmedia, is a publicity firm with strong ties to both Ottawa and the high-tech community. Rebel.com is among inmedia's client list. If we are able to come to a satisfactory arrangement, inmedia will study NCF, our goals and existing market position with a view to preparing a communications plan and providing us with ongoing assistance throughout the year to publicize our various projects. Inmedia has ties to an ad production agency as well, and may also be able to obtain assistance on our behalf for the preparation of ads for insertion in various publications. Gordon Pearson's July FREEbytes column in Monitor Magazine this month is dedicated to the 2nd annual Throop Photographic Harvest Ride, our fall cycling event, jointly organized by NCF and the Citizens for safe cycling. http://www.ncf.ca/ip/freenet/announce/monitor/1999-07 or "go freebytes" Mr Pearson provides details about the ride itself, NCF and CfSC. Monitor Magazine continues to support both NCF and the Harvest Ride by providing two ads in their magazine: an NCF ad which promotes our service, and a special ad (colour) featuring the Harvest Ride. Rebel.com, issued a press release, announcing their donation of a Horizon UltraSparc IIi serrver to NCF. c) Picnic ~~~~~~ The annual FreeNet Picnic was held on Saturday, July 17, 1999. Despite occasional "near monsoon level" storm conditions with high winds, participants had fun, swapped war stories, munched on hot dogs and hamburgers and enjoyed the facilities at Britannia Park. With revenue from food sales offsetting event expenses, the picnic was held at near break-even expense. d) Throop Photographic Harvest Ride Planning continues for this event. Registration fees will be $10 for a child, $25 for adults, $45 for the whole family. Give-aways are more than generous, and will include lunch, T-shirts, bike accessories etc. As an added incentive, people who send in their registration forms before August 31, 1999, are eligible for 'early-bird' prizes of Corel software, and cycling accessories. Details about the Harvest Ride, and a "rogues gallery" from last year can be seen at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ride/ f) Top Five Priorities - ED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) System reliability - Replace terminal server at Mitel - Continue to monitor and modify modem/annex arrangement at Carleton (2) Projects - Extended Access II (RMOC) - Urban CAP - VolNet - Summer student employment on CapitalFind (3) Making NCF membership easy - New auto-install software for Win98 (4) Membership Building - Distribution of flyer and reproduction of accompanying Auto-install software to computer stores. - Email for students (5) Y2K Issues - Monitor and facilitate progress. 3. System Administration ======================== a) Reliability Concerns ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It seems unliekely that weill be able to obtain telephone service (modem lines) at similar prices to what we now pay for analog service. Accordingly, we will have to concentrate on finding ways to extend the life-span of existing equipment. Fresh modems from Mitel have proven to be exceptionally reliable. Further donations from Mitel of USR modems may improve our modem pool. Some older equipment is being taken out of the racks at Carleton. This will allow us to move modems from freenet-annex3 to annex2, which should improve terminal-server reliability. b) Mitel upgrades ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Cisco AS5200 terminal server has been configured for the Mitel network and is ready for testing. There is still yet no confirmed date for the Mitel line changes. Tentatively end-of-august. Installation of the new digital lines at Mitel is the current plan of attack for resolving connectivity issues at this site. c) Y2K ~~~ Ian! Allen has Freeport running in test on freenet8, under Solaris 7. Solaris 7 should be Y2K ready, and a test group has been created. If all seems well, the sysadmin team will begin plans to upgrade our client machines to Solaris 7. d) Directory and Web services on f9 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Netscape Enterprise/3.6 web server and Netscape Directory Server/3.1 are now both running on freenet9 (the new Horizon Ultrasparc IIi machine, recently donated by Rebel.com. There are some final configuration issues to sort out with the Directory server, after which the Sysadmin plans to make f9 the official or "main" webserver. e) Webmail - Messaging Express ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Netscape's Messaging Express has turned out to be an excellent, and easily configured solution for our webmail needs, and not at all as difficult to deal with as the Sysadmin team had anticipated. The system is now running in test mode and although there have been a few reported problems among the testers, we believe that the problems are mostly associated with the IMAP server, which is running on a very slow and overloaded machine. It is anticipated that our planned relocation of the POP/IMAP services to freenet1 will resolve these issues. Currently webmail will access a users POP mailbox. Webmail (testers only please) can be accessed at http://webmail.ncf.ca. f) Sysadmin Priorities ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Resolve problems on Carleton servers/modems and balance server load (2) Install AS5200 NAS at Mitel and configure (3) Remove f7 from service; relocate POP services (4) Begin adding web services to f9 (5) Extended Access II -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524